Colonial Society in the Americas and Sugar, Slavery, Fur Trading, and Christianity and Native Religions (675-686)

• Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca: adventurer went to Florida in 1527
  • went with 300 others, majority died
  • migrated to New Spain, and Galveston ended up in Mexico in 1536
• Mestizo Societies: colonies
  • Migration patterns made more diverse
  • majority of European populations were male --> formed mestizo people
  • In Brazil males married African slaves as well
    • zambos= indigenous and African slave offspring
    • Mestizos= indigenous peoples as well as the European People
    • mulattoes= Europeans and African Slaves
• Social Hierarchy (social standings)
  • peninsulares= pure europeans, born in Europe travel to Americas
  • Criolles= peninsulares' children
  • mestizos, important to societies' funtion
  • imported slaves and conquered people
• North American Societies--> French and English Cultures
  • more females
  • metis = French equivalent to mestizo near important fur trapping ports
  • English people didn't mingle with the indigenous people
    • racism starts

• greatest attraction of the Americas were metals
• opened mines to extract the mineral wealth of the Americas in more systematic fashion.
• Silver Mining
  • silver was most abundant american treasure
  • silver production concentrated on 2 areas:
    • the thinly populated Mexican north (Zacatecas region)
    • the cold central Andes (mines of Potosi)
  • had many indigenous laborers
  • many miners went to Zacatecas to escape disease and conquest pressures
    • they eventually became spanish speaking professional minors
    • lost touch with communities of their birth
  • Potosi had a booming population
  • Spanish prospectors adapted the Inca practice of requisitioning draft labor
    • known as the mita system
    • to recruit workers for particularly difficult and dangerous chores that free laborers wouldn't accept
  • every four months, 1/7 of each native village's population (males) went to work at Potosi mines
  • wages were very low
  • harsh conditions
  • death rates were high
  • many men fled mita system
• The Global Significance of Silver
  • mining stimulated the world economy
  • silver produced profits for private investors and revenues for the royalty of that country
  • 1/5 of silver production went to government this is known as the quint
  • silver financed a powerful army and bureaucracy
  • much of the silver went well beyond Spain to lubricate the European and the larger world economies
  • European merchants traded silver for silk, spices, and porcelain in Asian markets
  • some silver went on Manila galleons
  • silver traveled throughout the world
• The Hacienda
  • farming, stock raising, and craft production were principal occupations (apart from mining)
  • mining towns provided opportunities for cultivators, herders, and artisans
  • most prominent site for agriculture were the estates (haciendas)
  • haciendas produced food for their own use but also to be sold on the market
• Labor Systems
  • most hacienda workers were from indigenous population
  • Encomienda system was used
    • rewarded Spanish conquerors by allowing them to exact both labor and tribute from defeated Moorish populations
    • led to rampant abuse of indigenous peoples
    • landowners overworked their laborers
  • Encomienda system gradually went out of use
  • landowners resorted to a system of debt peonage to recruit labor for their haciendas
  • landowners advanced loans to native peoples so that they could buy seeds, tools, and supplies
  • debtors repaid the loans with labor
  • wagers were low so they could never pay off their debts
• Resistance to Spanish Rule

  Tupac Amaru

  • indigenous people resisted
  • resistance came in the forms of rebellion, halfhearted work, and retreat into the mountains and forests where Spanish power didn't reach
  • 1680- several native groups in N. Mexico mounted a large uprising known as the Pueblo revolt.
    • revolt lead by native shaman (Popé)
    • they attacked missions, killed priests, and colonists
  • 1780- 60,000 native peoples revolted in the name of Tupac Amaru (the last of the Inca rulers)
    • Spanish people beheaded Tupac
  • 1615- Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayla fired off a 1200 page letter to King Philip III asking for protection for native peoples agaist rapacious colonists
  • Guaman Poma's complaint serves as a record of grievances against Spanish overlords.
    • wrote of men ruined by overtaxation and women driven to prostitiution

• The dependence on sugar in Portuguese empire
  • Colonial Brazilian life revolved around the sugar mill, other wise known as Engenho
  • Combined agricultural and industrial enterprises
  • Sugar planters became the landers nobility
• Growth of Slavery in Brazil
  • Brazilain Native peoples were not cultivators, farm labor was resisted
  • Small pox and Measles reduced indigenous population
  • Imported African slaves for cane and sugar production after 1530
  • There was a high death rate and low birth rate due to diseases, causing a higher demand for more slaves
  • Aproximatley one ton of sugar cost one human life
  • Sugar production was one of the most laborsome jobs at the time; extreemly hard work

• Fur trading industry was very profitable
• Native peoples also trapped and then tradded with the Europeans
• Impacts of the fur trade
  • Huge enviornmental impact
  • Natives competing for resources caused many conflicts
• European settlers and cultivators caused more serious threats to the native people
  • Cultivation of cash crops
    • Tabacco, rice, indigo
    • Later cotton production
  • Indentured labor flocked to North America in the 17th and 18th centuries
• African Slaves replaced indentured servants in the late 17th centuries
  • Slave labor was not highly popular due to the lack of labor intensive crops
  • New England merchants participated in the slave trade
  • Distillation of Rum

• Spanish Missionaries
  • Franciscan, Dominican, and Jesuit missionaries campaigned
  • Founded schools to educate the wealthy/prominent in Latin, Spanish, and Christian doctrine
  • Learned native languages
  • Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagun preserved volumes of information about the language, customs, beliefs, literature, and history of Mexico
    • Work remained unstudied until 20th century, but shed light on Aztec society and methods of early missionaries in Mexico
• Survival of Native Religions
  • Missionaires encountered resistance, indigenous peoples continued to observe inherited faiths in Mexico and Peru
  • Natives honored idols in caves and mountain sites (maybe even sacrificing humans)

    Virgin of Guadalupe

  • Christianity won adherents
    • Conquest and epidemic disease made leaders in Mexico decide their gods had abandoned them
  • Natives blended their interests/traditions with Christian faith
    • Revered Roman Catholic Saints with qualities of their gods or those whose feast days coincided with traditional celebrations
• The Virgin of Guadalupe
  • Mid-17th century- Christianity became especially popular in Mexico, some taking the Virgin of Guadalupe almost as a national symbol
  • Virgin Mary appeared before a peasant near Mexico city in 1531 (legend) and the sight became a shrine
  • 1640s- the shrine attracted pilgrims to Mexico, because the Virgin of Guadalupe worked miracles on those who visited
• French and English Missionaries
  • Didn't attract as many converts in North America
    • Mostly because the people of North America moved frequently, whereas in Mexico natives were sedentary in villages/towns/cities
  • Missionaries didn't actively seek converts
  • French missionaries worked among natives in St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio River valleys and experienced little conversion to Christianity
  • Settlements of French and especially English colonists guaranteed spread of European religious tradition